she loved him better, as was right. Ah! it was a bitter day when she left me for Spain; for though, to one of our wandering race, all countries are alike, yet the soil of our birth is dear to us, and the presence of our kindred dearer. Well, well, I will not think of that. She is gone. Nay, take it not so to heart, wench. Luke has a hasty temper. ’Tis not the first time I have told you so. He will not bear rebuke, and you have questioned him too shrewdly touching his absence. Is it not so? Heed it not. Trust me, you will have him seek your forgiveness ere the shadows shorten ‘neath the noontide sun.”
“Alas! alas!” said Sybil, sadly, “this is no lover’s quarrel, which may, at once, be forgotten and forgiven — would it were so!”
“What is it, then?” asked Barbara; and without waiting Sybil’s answer, she continued, with vehemence, “has he wronged you? Tell me, girl, in what way? Speak, that I may avenge you, if your wrong requires revenge. Are you blood of mine, and think I will not do this for you, girl? None of the blood of Barbara Lovel were ever unrevenged. When Richard Cooper stabbed my first-born, Francis, he fled to Flanders to escape my wrath. But he did not escape it. I pursued him thither. I hunted him out; drove him back to his own country, and brought him to the gallows. It took a power of gold. What matter? Revenge is dearer than gold. And as it was with Richard Cooper, so it shall be with Luke Bradley. I will catch him, though he run. I will trip him, though he leap. I will reach him, though he flee afar. I will drag him hither by the hair of his head,” added she, with a livid smile, and clutching at the air with her hands, as if in the act of pulling some one towards her. “He shall wed you within the hour, if you will have it, or if your honor need that it should be so. My power is not departed from me. My people are yet at my command. I am still their queen, and woe to him that offendeth me!”
“Mother! mother!” cried Sybil, affrighted at the storm she had unwittingly aroused, “he has not injured me. ’Tis I alone who am to blame, not Luke.”
“You speak in mysteries,” said Barbara.
“Sir Piers Rookwood is dead.”
“Dead!” echoed Barbara, letting fall her hazel rod. “Sir Piers dead!”
“And Luke Bradley ——”
“Ha!”
“Is his successor.”
“Who told you that?” asked Barbara, with increased astonishment.
“Luke himself. All is disclosed.” And Sybil hastily recounted Luke’s adventures. “He is now Sir Luke Rookwood.”
“This is news, in truth,” said Barbara; “yet not news to weep for. You should rejoice, not lament. Well, well, I foresaw it. I shall live to see all accomplished; to see my Agatha’s child ennobled; to see her wedded; ay, to see her well wedded.”
“Dearest mother!”
“I can endow you, and I will do it. You shall bring your husband not alone beauty, you shall bring him wealth.”
“But, mother ——”
“My Agatha’s daughter shall be Lady Rookwood.”
“Never! It cannot be.”
“What cannot be?”
“The match you now propose.”
“What mean you, silly wench? Ha! I perceive the meaning of those tears. The truth flashes upon me. He has discarded you.”
“No, by the Heaven of Heavens, he is still the same — unaltered in affection.”
“If so, your tears are out of place.”
“Mother, it is not fitting that I, a gipsy born, should wed with him.”
“Not fitting! Ha! and you my child! Not fitting! Get up, or I will spurn you. Not fitting! This from you to me! I tell you it is fitting; you shall have a dower as ample as that of any lady in the land. Not fitting! Do you say so, because you think that he derives himself from a proud and ancient line — ancient and proud — ha, ha! I tell you, girl, that for his one ancestor I can number twenty; for the years in which his lineage hath flourished, my race can boast centuries, and was a people — a kingdom! — ere the land in which he dwells was known. What! if, by the curse of Heaven, we were driven forth, the curse of hell rests upon his house.”
“I know it,” said Sybil; “a dreadful curse, which, if I wed him, will alight on me.”
“No; not on you; you shall avoid that curse. I know a means to satisfy the avenger. Leave that to me.”
“I dare not, as it never can be; yet, tell me — you saw the body of Luke’s ill-fated mother. Was she poisoned? Nay, you may speak. Sir Piers’s death releases you from your oath. How died she?”
“By strangulation,” said the old gipsy, raising her palsied hand to her throat.
“Oh!” cried Sybil, gasping with horror. “Was there a ring upon her finger when you embalmed the body?”
“A ring — a wedding-ring! The finger was crookened. Listen, girl, I could have told Luke the secret of his birth long ago, but the oath imposed by Sir Piers sealed fast my lips. His mother was wedded to Sir Piers; his mother was murdered by Sir Piers. Luke was entrusted to my care by his father. I have brought him up with you. I have affianced you together; and I shall live to see you united. He is now Sir Luke. He is your husband.”
“Do not deceive yourself, mother,” said Sybil, with a fearful earnestness. “He is not yet Sir Luke Rookwood; would he had no claim to be so! The fortune that has hitherto been so propitious may yet desert him. Bethink you of a prophecy you uttered.”
“A prophecy? Ha!”
And with slow enunciation Sybil pronounced the mystic words which she had heard repeated by the sexton.
As she spoke, a gloom, like that of a thunder-cloud, began to gather over the brow of the old gipsy. The orbs of her sunken eyes expanded, and wrath supplied her frame with vigor. She arose.
“Who told you that?” cried Barbara.
“Luke’s grandsire, Peter Bradley.”
“How learnt he it?” said Barbara. “It was to one who hath long been in his grave I told it; so long ago, it had passed from my memory. ’Tis strange! old Sir Reginald had a brother, I know. But there is no other of the house.”
“There is a cousin, Eleanor Mowbray.”
“Ha! I see; a daughter of that Eleanor Rookwood who fled from her father’s roof. Fool, fool. Am I caught in my own toils? Those words were words of truth and power, and compel the future and ‘the will be’ as with chains of brass. They must be fulfilled, yet not by Ranulph. He shall never wed Eleanor.”
“Whom then shall she wed?”
“His elder brother.”
“Mother!” shrieked Sybil. “Do you say so? Oh! recall your words.”
“I may not; it is spoken. Luke shall wed her.”
“Oh God, support me!” exclaimed
